From my Substack diary no.177: Monday, 8th. June 2026

I recently found myself in the highly unusual position of being able to purchase some rather good tomatoes from a greengrocer, that actually smell and taste like tomatoes. I was reminded that, in general, our ‘choice’ in terms of the quality and range of food has been diminishing since the advent of supermarkets whilst the choice of video entertainment has increased exponentially. Have we got our priorities right?

The notion that choice in something as basic as food is narrowing will probably be meaningless to someone under the age of 50. For example, there are considerably fewer varieties of tomatoes available today in comparison with pre-supermarket days. Most of the tomatoes that are available to most people are drab and tasteless and don’t even smell like tomatoes. A lot of them are grown hydroponically, sprayed with all manner of petro-chemicals such as fertilisers and pesticides, and even after harvesting are treated with more chemicals such as benzoates, nitrites and sulphites to prolong shelf life. They can then sit in a warehouse and be wheeled out when demand increases.

The days when most of us had access to 40 or so varieties of tomato are long gone. Today there are about half a dozen varieties of bland tasteless tomatoes. Why? Well, it’s pretty obvious really. People want cheap food. Supermarkets buy in bulk to meet that demand, and nail down farmers so hard they must engage in large-scale monoculture to make a living. Many hectares with just one variety. They call it ‘progress’ and most of us seem to swallow it without a thought. And that is just tomatoes; what about all the other fruits, vegetables, pulses, grains, beans and so on?

It’s all smoke and mirrors of course. Food seems cheap because of the price we pay for it, but the price to the taxpayer further down the line is huge. Where do you think all those by-products of the petro-chemical industry go? Exactly, run-off from land into rivers, lakes and the sea. Pollution. And the old ‘polluter pays’ principle is right out of the window. Since when did the super-rich oil industry pay to clean up their mess? We the taxpayer pays. That is the real cost of factory farming. And that is not counting the cost of health care to deal with the increase in allergies, respiratory disease and other outcomes of drenching our land and food in unnatural chemicals.

It would seem that we are happier to pay an artificially low price for food and an artificially high price for umpteen TV channels and streaming services and gadgets we never thought we needed. Amazon: please rush me my discounted penguin grooming kit.

So, to paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android: Choice? Don’t talk to me about choice! (You probably have to be over 50 to get that reference too!)